One of the nice things about vacation was getting the chance to catch up on a little reading.

I started with Beth Bernobich’s novel The Time Roads[Amazon | B&N | IndieBound], a collection of four novellas (or novelettes?) telling the story of an alternate Ireland at the start of the twentieth century. Part one, “The Golden Octopus,” introduces us to Queen Áine, the young ruler of the empire of Éire, and the scientist Dr. Breandan Ó Cuilinn, a pioneer in the science of time fractures. As a result of said time fractures, each novella reflects a slightly changed reality, with characters struggling to reconcile conflicting memories and events.

One of the four stories, “A Flight of Numbers Fantastique Strange,” made the preliminary Nebula Award ballot after being published as a standalone in Asimov’s. I remember reading it then and very much enjoying it, and it was wonderful to get the broader context of the surrounding stories.

It was particularly nice to see things start to come together in the final part of the book, which returns to Áine’s perspective as she struggles to deal with enemies who’ve learned to weaponize the time fractures. It raised the stakes and the pacing, and worked well to bring everything home.

It’s not a traditionally structured novel, which may throw some folks off. But the steampunk/fantasy/time travel/alternate history mix made for an enjoyable read.

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Next up was S.L. Huang’s Half Life, [Amazon | B&N], the sequel to Zero Sum Game, which I enjoyed and reviewed a while back. Mathematical genius and morally grey action hero Cas Russell is back, and this time she’s trying to track down a man’s missing daughter (who may or may not exist), fight off the mob, and track down some plutonium in her free time.

If you liked the first book, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well. It has a lot of the same fast-paced action and non-stop plot. We get more of Chester and Arthur, who balance Cas out in good ways. It’s just plain fun reading.

What we don’t get is much more about Cas’ background and origin story, though I imagine more of that mystery will be revealed in future books.

I had some of the same nitpicks about using math to calculate things human bodies and reflexes simply aren’t fast enough for, but it was easier this time to let that go as part of our protagonist’s mysterious enhancements and backstory. I also thought the ending went a little over-the-top.

I particularly enjoyed how Huang wrote about lifelike robots, and the way different characters responded to them. It explored a number of angles and ideas, and brought up some great ethical conflicts, not to mention tripping Cas up with logic vs. emotional instinct.

It was a fun read, one I zipped through it in about two days, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for book three!